Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Scouting the 2012 NFL Draft Quarterbacks: The Best Of The Rest

Yesterday, I went over the big dogs who have a shot of going in the first round of the draft. Today, I am going to look at five guys, all from big time schools who are expected to be drafted, just not on day one. Tomorrow, hopefully before the draft, I will have time to rank these quarterbacks, and also throw out some prospects that I really love in this draft who are not getting enough love. But let's get talking about these QBs.

I have disliked Cousins as a prospect for a while. He never really impressed me, but I wanted to look deep into some games to see if I was right, or if I just had Iowa hate running through my veins.

He is inaccurate with his throws, and in completely unpredictable ways. He’ll underthrow, he’ll overthrow, he’ll throw behind, or too far in front. I do not see how this is not seen as a big deal, because it is a very big deal.

He also likes to throw in coverage.

The arm strength was better than I remembered, as I have no questions on whether he has the arm to be successful at the next level. It might be great arm strength, but his footwork is so inconsistent that fans of the team that drafts Cousins should get used to hearing, “Cousins off his back foot…”

When it is all working, he makes some elite throws. But it is rarely all working.

He was solid in being able to check down to secondary targets.

He gets a ridiculous amount of hype for his poise and intangibles, but I’ll give him his due, on the final drive of regulation against Georgia, he made good decisions, was accurate with the football, and played his best football when it mattered most.

Very good pocket presence. He’s not an athlete, but he has a great feel for the rush, and knows subtle ways to avoid it.

He throws a good deep ball as long as it’s not down the middle where there can be safety help. If there’s any chance of safety help, it’s not gonna work, because it’s in the air just a little too long.

His ability to find holes in coverage is really impressive. Terrifying, but impressive.

He’s got everything except athleticism, height, and arm strength. The former isn’t that important, the middle is a little more important, but the latter is what he gets killed on. It’s tough to overlook, but I think at worst, he becomes a reliable backup. If he’s your number one guy, it’s tough to say how far he can take you as the offense really needs to rely on his strengths (no pun intended), but man, if he had an arm, he’s a top 10 pick.

Russell WilsonI was only able to get a good video of his game against Ohio State, but I had also watched him several times during the season.He has good arm strength.Good with the play fake.Their offense included a ton of rollouts, but he was still able to throw from the pocket when the play called for it. He does a good job of going through his progressions from high to low.His ball placement isn't great. When he was missing passes badly, he tended to miss high which is a very dangerous thing to do in the NFL.He's definitely a good athlete for the position, but his mobility is kind of hit or miss. Not great vision, and sometimes finds himself zig-zagging behind the line of scrimmage without actually improving his ability to run or to make a pass. With that being said, he is very good at throwing on the move as he may be more accurate on the move than he is while standing still.At the end of the game, they needed 70 yards, he threw it 40. That's not a great sign for his arm, but it could have also just been drawn up that way to draw an interference, so I can't say too much.

That's it for today. Tomorrow, I'll wrap some things up and get pumped for the NFL Draft.

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